DTRPG Says 'Don't criticize us or we'll ban you'

[Alzrius]

while it pains me to say it, the monopoly element of DTRPG is that people think it a monopoly and don't look elsewhere.

Strictly speaking, I've noted before that I don't think they are a monopoly, but rather have monopoly power, which is different (e.g. you don't need to control 100% of a market to have a massive influence over it). Other outlets certainly exist, but when publishers reach something like 85% of their customers via that one platform (to use a number that one publisher estimated), that makes the presence of alternative venues a lot less important in reality than they might otherwise look on paper.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Strictly speaking, I've noted before that I don't think they are a monopoly, but rather have monopoly power, which is different (e.g. you don't need to control 100% of a market to have a massive influence over it). Other outlets certainly exist, but when publishers reach something like 85% of their customers via that one platform (to use a number that one publisher estimated), that makes the presence of alternative venues a lot less important in reality than they might otherwise look on paper.

The article you linked used monopoly power as the test to determine what a monopoly is under the British law. There wasn't any difference.

 

[Alzrius]

The article you linked used monopoly power as the test to determine what a monopoly is under the British law. There wasn't any difference.

The first paragraph outlines the difference:

A pure monopoly is defined as a single supplier. While there only a few cases of pure monopoly, monopoly ‘power’ is much more widespread, and can exist even when there is more than one supplier – such in markets with only two firms, called a duopoly, and a few firms, an oligopoly.

 

[Alzrius]

I assume alzurius doesn't think DTRPG has to publish stuff that explicitly makes specific threats of violence or other illegal material, without needing them to say that. (they may have done, actually, I don't recall at this point)

To be absolutely clear: I don't think that there's any moral impetus on DriveThruRPG to publish stuff that makes specific threats of violence, or is otherwise illegal (quite the opposite, I think they have a moral impetus to take such stuff down as soon as they become aware of it).

 

[Myrdin Potter]

Why would anyone care what Venger has to say?

Why would anyone care what you would have to say, if being dismissive of other’s views is your motif?

I only mentioned it because of mention early in the thread of this being due to Venger. However, his reaction to the item being pulled was to say he thought that OBS’ system was fair. Does not seem like “hostile marketing” to me.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

My views on OBS’ policy is that they are a private business and it is their right to carry what goods they want. I don’t think that that they such a tiny business as they are dismissed as, 40 full time employees is pretty large in the RPG space, they basically are the Valve/Steam of the RPG industry and within it they have a large influence. I don’t think it would be that hard to compete via a platform like Shopify as the tools to make such a digital file holding website are much more available today. Not sure it is worth the effort to.

Their digital exclusivity policy is pretty broad - it does not say don’t sell the same pdf elsewhere, it says don’t sell a digital version anywhere. So no Amazon ebook if you sell your pdf here. Probably no computer game version of you sell your item here. That restriction is by choice of the publisher in return for a small reduction of the OBS fee. You can choose a non-exclusive relationship if you want. This has outsized impact on smaller publishers. A good example is that if you list your PDF and take the extra 5%, then you cannot sell a VTT version elsewhere.

 

[Mannahnin]

Which to me seems much the same as companies attempting to suppress bad reviews (even if such reviews are warranted) be it by deleting them, denying service to those who post them, or even in rare cases issuing groundless legal threats and-or C&Ds; all of which makes the entire review system suspect at best and near-fraudulent at worst. It's simply corporations trying to control what people say about them, and this seems to me like more of the same.

I don't think they're similar at all. I'm really confused about why you think so. This is just them saying "If you defame us in public as a marketing tactic instead of working with us as business partner, we reserve the right to reserve service to you". Which is perfectly fair and totally within their rights, and the only reason they even had to say it was because one or more bad-faith actors were engaged in exactly this kind of misbehavior.

A corporation is not a person and does not have feelings, and thus in theory cannot take offense over what someone says/writes about it unless it crosses the legal line into libel and-or defamation. We have courts for that, and due process.

The courts are for seeking and enforcing a criminal or civil penalty. They're not talking about suing or prosecuting people. Just about exercising their freedom of association not to do business with a publisher who talks naughty word about them in public and/or encourages their fans to abuse DT's customer service.

It's the blanket not-so-subtle pre-emptive threat in that policy that bothers me.

It's not a pre-emptive threat. It's a policy statement to clarify how they're going to respond, or may respond, to certain bad and deleterious business practices, which they're only making because one or more jerks already engaged in those hostile practices.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

I’m guessing there is a mailing list that the other poster is part of?

Update 41: Rainbow Crystal Utopia · Cha'alt: Chartreuse Shadows

Normally, I might have used Kickstarter to fund my latest Cha'alt adventure. Because I haven't fulfilled all the rewards (I'm stilling waiting on a shipping date, should have more news next week), KS has told me I can't run another crowdfunding campaign on their platform. I probably should have...

www.kickstarter.com

Not private.

 

[Jahydin]

Not sure if already posted, but James Raggi's response.

Figured it was worth posting since his work is both popular and likely to be affected by the new policy.

Have to run to work, but will edit with a TL;DW when I get back.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Not sure if already posted, but James Raggi's response.

Figured it was worth posting since his work is both popular and likely to be affected by the new policy.

Have to run to work, but will edit with a TL;DW when I get back.

Why do these guys always insist on doing videos shirtless?